Every Night About This Time
by Gonzo Wiz
Summary: It's amazing what someone will do to remember. Buffy/Spike, sort of, quite angsty but no sex.


Every Night About This Time  
  
Author: Gonzo Wiz  
  
Spoilers: Through "Smashed".  
  
Rating: R, for general disturbing-ness and a bit of violence. But not sex! No sex in here. If you're lookin' for post-Smashed smutty goodness, this is not the place.  
  
Feedback: Would be really nice. gonzowiz@hotmail.com  
  
Distribution: Go crazy, just credit me and tell me where it's going.  
  
Disclaimer: All characters are owned by Joss, Mutant Enemy, and assorted and sundry. I'm just using them.  
  
Note: Ah, the words of doom: this is my first Buffy fic. Or at least the first one that wasn't so awful that I wanted to bury it in a deep hole forever.  
  
He wasn't really expecting her to be there when he woke up. Somewhere deep inside, he thought that it had been another dream. She was unusually lifelike, unusually vivid, yeah, but not something flesh and blood and lying in front of him, asleep on the pile of broken wood - *hmmm, broken wood, I got lucky in more ways than one tonight* - making this odd little purring sound. *Amusing. Is this a Slayer thing, then? Have I just forgotten how people breathe when they're asleep? Interesting question, I'll have to test it -*  
  
"OW! That's my ARM! Bloody hell, Slayer, since when are you a praying mantis - stop pulling! Stop - I'm awake, I'm awake. What are you doing?"  
  
"Don't wig. Can you move over?"  
  
"NO. Wait. Maybe. Why?"  
  
"I want to see you a little better."  
  
"Oh., come on. I think you've seen about as much of me as it's possible to see. OUCH! What'd you do that for?"  
  
"For being a jerk. Jerk."  
  
"Bitch."  
  
"Mean person. Who is . . . mean. That could have been better."  
  
"Damn right, love."  
  
"How'd that happen?" He realized that she was reaching out and running her hand along the scar on his eyebrow. *She's touching me and looking at me at the same time. Another first. I should start a journal of moments like this. Oh, and then I can press wildflowers and write love poems, and go prancing about wearing a ruffled shirt and singing in the bloody rain. I'm not William. I'm not weak. I'm not. I'll show her.*  
  
He rolled away from her. "Don't you think it's time you get going? Past your bedtime. Your little team of not-exactly-superheroes should be missing you. And I'm sure you don't want to explain yourself to them. Or you could, and the little witch could make you forget it all, again, and - hey!" She pulled him back down.  
  
"Wow. It's just amazing, Spike. You've been alive a century and yet you still can't answer a stupid little question like mine."  
  
"Let. Me. Go."  
  
"Why are you avoiding answering?"  
  
"I think it's my right to have a private life!"  
  
"Spiiiiiike."  
  
"Slaaaaaayer. I'm still not going to tell you."  
  
"Okay. Then I'll just have to make my own assumptions."  
  
"Wait a second. What the hell is that supposed to mean?"  
  
"I think it's my right to have a private thought."  
  
"What? What are you thinking? Stop it!"  
  
"Then tell me!"  
  
"Okay, then. But it's rated R for graphic language and violence and I don't think that young, tender, soft . . . ears like yours should be hearing this."  
  
"Shut up and talk."  
  
"Okay. Short, condensed version. It was turn of the century, China, I was fighting a Slayer, she had a sword, got in a lucky shot. The end. Happy?"  
  
"No. What happened to the Slayer?"  
  
"Oh, I killed her a few minutes later. She was distracted, probably because her city was burning to the ground, helped in large parts by Darla and Dru and the great nancy-boy that you call your ex. The first great nancy-boy. The second one was less of a nancy-boy, more of an empty-headed teddy bear."  
  
"Stop making fun of my exes!"  
  
"Your exes are worth making fun of."  
  
"Like yours are so much better. And like you and Angel never had a thing going!"  
  
"Oh, yeah, you'd love that, wouldn't you? I bet you think about it all the time. I refuse to feed your sick, twisted fantasies! I have my dignity! Where are my bloody pants?" *Hope she doesn't think I'm actually angry. Or actually leaving.*  
  
She settled back down. "How'd you kill her?"  
  
*Ah. Safer territory. To an extent.* "The usual way that vampires do."  
  
She looked disturbed, for the first time since they'd woken up. "Oh. Okay, then."  
  
He sighed. "No, love, I took her to a nice farm family where she can romp and play with the other Slayers - of course I drank her! That's what we do. You know what I am."  
  
*Change the subject. Change the subject. Please. Just don't start thinking. Don't remember that I can kill you now. Don't let me remember that. Oh, God, I can kill her now. Why didn't I kill her now?* "How'd you get that other scar?"  
  
*Not again.* "Well, seeing as how it's bite marks on my neck, I'd venture that you can take a guess at it."  
  
"Are they Dru's?"  
  
"Yeah. Most of the other scars fade, but you never lose the ones your sire gave you. Or a Slayer. Angel-wanker-idiot probably still has sword marks on his stomach from your one-way first-class ticket to hell." *If I'm ever going to get a chance at a repeat of last night, I'm going to have to lay off on Angel. Damn. Taking the piss out of him was half the joy in my unlife. She's worth it, though. Did I say that? Damn. Shag-delirium.That's all it is.*  
  
"So nothing else scars?"  
  
"Come on! You know this. Otherwise we'd be nothing but a highly unattractive mass of mottled tissue and you'd never have slept with any vampires, much less two of us." *Hmm, she didn't hit me for that one. Maybe she's loosening up. Or falling asleep again. Her eyes are closing.*  
  
"So then what's this?" Her arms traced a long, bumpy line along the bottom of his arm. It went across his chest, looped around his other arm, and went down to his side, where it abruptly stopped. *She's holding me now, actually holding me. Guess she's one who likes the cuddling. Unlike - well, I like the cuddling now too. Especially the naked part.*  
  
"That'd be the one I got from falling through the floor last night, pet."  
  
"Ummm. Okay. Hey, Spike?"  
  
"What is it now?" *Don't press the issue.*  
  
"You ever read the Velveteen Rabbit?"  
  
*Lie. Lie. Lie.* "Yes." *Dammit. Should have lied.*  
  
"'S funny. 'Cause you're kinda like the Velveteen Rabbit, y'know? You got all these stitches, and you got tossed out by Dru, like that little kid tossed out the toy, because he wanted something new, and then we kinda picked you up and-" Her voice cut out abruptly.  
  
"Slayer? Buffy?" Nothing. She was asleep again.  
  
He snuggled in a little closer. He whispered in her ear, "You didn't get to the end. The where he realized that he was loved. And that's what made him real. In the end, you know. You forgot that part."  
  
Her fingers still touched the scar on his back, which was not from falling through the ceiling. *She would have realized that if she was half awake at the time. The only lie I've told her since she's been back. But she doesn't want to know this one.*  
  
He looked at the ceiling - what was left of it - and remembered.  
  
-May, 2001-  
  
The Niblet had come by to drop off some blood, and the witches tried to get him to come out to patrol tonight, but he didn't feel like it. Didn't feel like much of anything, really. Couldn't wake up. She wasn't even buried yet - it was only yesterday - and they were out patrolling. They said that the demons never took days off for a death so they shouldn't. He wondered why not. Everything else had stopped. One day. Couldn't think about anything else. Just one day. Seems like a few lifetimes. He'd had a few lifetimes but this day seemed longer than any of them.  
  
He didn't know what happened after he saw her lying there. Fell down and cried, of course, didn't even notice that the sunlight was burning him. Then he tried to run to her, but someone stopped him. A good idea, or else Buffy's funeral would be cut short by her waking up as a vampire. It probably wouldn't have worked, anyway, and it certainly wasn't what she would have wanted. He just needed a little more time, and then he'd stake her himself. Just time. To say a few things. You never get to say the stuff you want to, like I love you, or I'll protect them, or don't go. Someone carried him to his bed.  
  
They were going to go out on patrol, and fight the demons, and they'd have her funeral in a few days - the witches told him it was going to be at night so he and Angel could come - and then they'd all get on with life. They'd fight evil for a while, and then they'd get bored, married, have kids, grow old, and think of her once in a while. They'd have lives. They'd remember her, but they'd forget what was special. Eventually.  
  
So it was up to him, then. He didn't have anything else to do. He'd stay in Sunnydale. He'd stay, and fight, and leave flowers on her grave after the rest of them were dead and gone. He'd failed her. Now he would repay her. The eternal one, watching over what she'd built, being the keeper of her memories, ensuring that she wouldn't be forgotten.  
  
He picked up the knife he'd left on the dresser to ward off any unwanted intruders in her crypt. *My fault. Mine. I owe this to her. I'm not going to forget. I'm not. This is how I'll remember.* He put the knife to his wrist and slowly, meticulously, carved a cross in it. It burned like hell and it wouldn't stop, and it wouldn't fade.  
  
He did the same the next night a little higher up on the arm, and the day after that, at the same time every night, moving across his body as space was needed.  
  
Altogether, he did it for one hundred and forty-seven days.  
  
And on the one hundred and forty-eighth day, he stopped.  
  
He didn't need help to remember any days after that. 


End file.
